Fort Pierre Chouteau

A Des Moines physician, Raymond A. Burnside, gave this tablet in September 1930, naming the post the chief landmark of the fur trade between the Platte and the Yellowstone. Its end was military rather than commercial. Chouteau's company sold the fort to the Army in 1855, General Harney's troops wintered here after the campaign of that year and held a council with the Lakota in 1856, and the Army abandoned the post in 1857; the tablet gives 1859 for its dismantling. The 1822 it casts belongs to the posts before it.

What the plaque says

This tablet marks the site and commemorates the institution of Fort Pierre Choteau Trading Post, chief land-mark of fur-trading period, 1822 - 1864, on the upper Missouri River between the Platte and the Yellowstone. Founded, 1832, by American Fur Company, Saint Louis, Missouri. Dismantled 1859. This tablet bestowed by Dr. Raymond A. Burnside Des Moines, Iowa. September, 1930.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Verendrye Monument — 2.4 mi
  The hilltop above Fort Pierre where three children found a lead plate in 1913 that two French brothers had buried in 1743 to claim the West for their king.
• South Dakota State Capitol — 2.6 mi
  A copper-domed capitol built to end three elections' worth of fighting over where the capital belonged, beside a lake fed by an artesian well with a gas flame burning in it.
• Oahe Dam — 4.1 mi
  One of the largest rolled-earth dams in the world, dedicated by President Kennedy in 1962, holding back a reservoir that reaches more than 230 miles to Bismarck.

More markers nearby

• History Unfolds — 1.3 mi
• Steamboat Reach — 1.9 mi
• John Sutherland and the Capital Fights — 2.3 mi
• First and Only Hanging in Hughes County — 2.4 mi